Tapatalk Groups
Tapatalk Groups is a free forum and message board hosting service that specializes in an app offering mobile access to message boards. They are headquartered in Santa Monica, California. In recent years, they have purchased various free forum services and forcibly unconverted hosted boards to their software, or deleted them. Their software was often incompatible with the skin themes and scripts used by the original owners, and moved some features free on other software behind a paywall for premium users. They currently host the popular Zoo Tycoon 2 message board The Round Table. History Purchase of Zathyus Networks The parent company of InvisionFree and ZetaBoards, Zathyus Networks, was among those purchased by Tapatalk Groups, despite an initial promise to allow the board services to continue to function as they had. Zathyus Networks' software was used for the majority of independent Zoo Tycoon forums and fansites, such as ZT2 Designing Centre, Zoo Tycoon Volcano, Caldera Unlimited, Environ, Gaia and The Round Table. Beginning in 2017 and concluding in September 2018, they forcibly converted Zathyus Network message boards to their service, with all InvisionFree and ZetaBoards message boards converted to Tapatalk's native software. The popular Zoo Tycoon 2 message board The Round Table has continued to be hosted on Tapatalk Groups' platform, however, with many modifications to replicate their original format, many other sites have chosen to move to Jcink, another free service using Invision-based forum software, such as Zoo Tycoon Volcano. Purchased Forum Services InvisionFree Also known as zIFBoards towards the end of its life, InvisionFree was a free forum hosting service based on the Invision Power Board suite license, first launched in 2003. All websites created on the software were hosted for free with limited banner ads. Content was not restricted, as customized themes and an unlimited number of posts, threads and members were allowed. Many boards without activity for over fifteen years remained online. Unlike its successor services, administrators could also pay to receive their forum database, which could be converted to another self-hosted forum service. ZetaBoards A few years after InvisionFree's successful launch, concern about security with the outdated software lead to the formation of Zathyus Networks as a parent company, and they launched ZetaBoards, a forum software coded and programmed entirely in-house that did not rely on Invision. The roll out of ZetaBoards promised the ability to add new features, frequent updates, and fewer patches, and offered a premium, ad-free service as well. Features such as blogging and hosted webpages were exclusive to the platform. InvisionFree message boards could be upgraded to ZetaBoards for free between 2008 and 2017, largely automatically, at admin request. Terms of Service There are a number of differences between Tapatalk Groups' services and preceding services, such as that Tapatalks' rules allow for the active deletion of inactive boards; many that were not migrated are in danger of deletion. Software Trivia *Although Zoo Tek Phoenix and Zoo Tycoon Unleashed both used Invision-based software, they were from paid Invision Power Board licenses and not hosted by InvisionFree. Links *https://www.tapatalk.com/ Main Site Category:Websites